GENER#TION

11 Aug to 6 Sep, 2016

The older generation has more beliefs than
knowledge, and our generation has more
knowledge than beliefs. So we’re trying to
understand how our society’s beliefs could fit
with our new knowledge.”

Ajlan Gharem
Artist, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 2015

GENERA#ION presents San Francisco’s
first exhibition of contemporary art from
the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This timely,
cross-generational survey of twelve artists
and two YouTube collectives working at the
center of the Islamic world, is presented
at Minnesota Street Project in the heart of
the Dogpatch district from August 11 until
September 6, 2016.

As the world’s media reports a resurgent
tide of religious intolerance and conflict, a
tight-knit group of Saudi artists, both men and
women, have acted upon a dream to discov-
er the people and diversity of America—from
the East to West coast - trekking across the US
interstate highway system and major cities on
a mission to share not only their innate pas-
sion to create but also to learn from the local
public and their reactions to their artworks.

As Abdulnasser Gharem, founder of
Gharem Studio and a driving force behind the

tour, comments, “The artists in this show pres-
ent a new intellectual paradigm that utilizes
unique concepts and terminology to define
the artists’ role within their society and their
generation. Rather than analyzing art and
society separately, the artists confront art as
a reflection of society, positioning themselves
as its mirrors.”

San Francisco, a city named after Saint
Francis of Assisi, who facilitated inter-reli-
gious dialogue with the Islamic World, has
always welcomed marginalized groups and
outsider voices. Since the 1950s, the Bay
area has attracted influential artists, poets
and thinkers who have initiated some of the
great generational movements of their time.
More recently, technological innovation and a
cultural renaissance in the heart of downtown
have once again put the ‘City of Rebels’ on
the world stage.

It now seems fitting that San Francisco
welcomes these outsider artists from Saudi
Arabia, very much the rebels of their genera-
tion, to speak out against the stereotypes and
restrictions that have been imposed on them,
both internally and externally. In traveling to
the U.S. at this time, they are defying main-
stream expectations, reaching out directly
to bridge one of the most contested political
and ideological borders of our time.